Flurry Tests the Water in China, Partnering with Renren Games

Mobile app analytics service Flurry and Renren Games, the online gaming business of Renren, announced a partnership today. Game developers will be able to access a Chinese version of Flurry Analytics and AppSpot on Renren Games platform. Flurry Marketplace, the RTB ad exchange will be integrated in early next year. Since there are only 36 third-party games hosted on Renren Games and a number of them are web games, only those of them who operate or plan to publish mobile games will benefit from this partnership.

Flurry data tell themselves why China matters. Mobile device adoption in China is grew 149% between April of 2012 and April of 2013, but it is still very early days. In February 2013, China surpassed the United States to become the world’s top country for active Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. In June of 2013, out of the 1.1 Billion active devices measured by Flurry, 261 million were in China, compared to 246 million in the United States.

A lot of Chinese developers, especially those targeting at global market, have been using Flurry, for it delivers global insights and help gain users from outside China. Some also use Google Analytics. Flurry’s counterparts in China include Umeng, which was acquired by Alibaba, TalkingData and App Annie. Localized offerings by them include analytics of app performance on different third-party Android app stores, as there are a handful of such stores in China. Most Chinese developers I know of use more than one analytics services at the same time.

Flurry doesn’t disclose details on its long-term plan in China but say they “will enable improved app monetization for Chinese app developer”. It offers Flurry Analytics for free while charges for usage of AppSpot and Marketplace, both of which are for developers to monetize traffic.

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